Broward growth rate 5th in U.S.

 BY AMY DRISCOLL AND TIM HENDERSON

 ¡Sí! It's official.

 Miami-Dade has the highest percentage of Hispanics of any large county in the nation, outstripping even Bexar County, Texas -- home of San Antonio -- which took the title a decade ago.

 But bulging Broward County made its own mark. It has grown at a faster rate than Miami-Dade since 1990, becoming the fifth-fastest-growing large county in the nation in total population, and fourth fastest in its Hispanic population.

 A Herald analysis Friday of 2000 Census figures released this month for the nation's counties serves to further cement some already familiar images of South Florida:
 Miami-Dade as the capital of café con leche, Broward as the epitome of sprawling growth.

 Taken as a whole, experts say, the numbers depict a region defined by vibrant growth and broad streams of immigrants from many nations.

 "The area is still a magnet for Hispanics and a magnet for immigrants; all the things that make Florida such a diverse state,'' said William Frey, a demographer at
 California's Milken Institute who has studied the state closely.

 "South Florida and Miami continue to be a window on America's relationship with the Caribbean and South America.''

 Miami-Dade's ranking as No. 1 in percentage of Hispanics in counties with more than one million in population comes as no great surprise to most demographics experts, who said they saw the signs years ago.

 "You can trace the evolution of Miami from a city that catered to tourists in the '60s to the very Latin American city it is today,'' said Lisandro Pérez, a Florida International University sociology professor and director of the Cuban Research Institute. "It's not hard to follow that change, starting with immigration.''

 Some areas, like Los Angeles County, have a larger number of Hispanics, he notes, but Miami-Dade's population is 57 percent Hispanic.

 "There's very much of a foreign atmosphere here that's palpable to people who visit,'' Pérez said. "There's the extent to which Spanish is a public language here. The
 extent to which institutions have adjusted to that. It all contributes to the feel of Miami as a Hispanic place.''

 Miami-Dade also grew in total population.

 The census numbers also show the speed at which Broward is becoming more like Miami-Dade.

 Broward's rate of Hispanic growth placed it fourth in the nation among counties that contained more than one million people.

 In terms of total population size, Broward ranks 15th in the nation, while Miami-Dade is No. 8, up two slots from a decade ago.

 That makes Miami-Dade the second-largest county on the East Coast, behind Kings County, N.Y., which encompasses Brooklyn.

 But Broward planner Bill Leonard sounded a note of caution about the growth, at least as it applies to his county.

 "I'm still of the opinion that a lot of this apparent growth is actually a result of doing a better job on the 2000 count than we did in 1990,'' he said.

 "A lot of this is catching up,'' he said.

 He said census workers seem to have done a much more thorough job on the 2000 head count and may have ferreted out people they missed in 1990, making it look as if  the county grew faster than it did.

 "On the other hand,'' he said, "we are growing. That's for sure.''